Dining in New York is a pleasure, as you can savor delicious food from all over the world at a price that suits your pocket. It is, undoubtedly, the Mecca of the connoisseurs of good food. Besides tasting regional specialties, you can sample food from virtually every part of the world in this city. Most of the New York restaurants are famous because of the efforts put together by a committed and skilled chef, great interiors, a disciplined staff, and the owner who is around most of the times to seek perfection relentlessly. This is why upcoming restaurateurs all over the world constantly copy their style, interiors and menus. They are the ultimate style icons that have inspired many restaurants across the world. New York boasts of some excellent restaurants and eating joints that cater to the dining needs of people from every social, cultural and economic stratum. Whatever your choice of food or cuisine, you can easily find a restaurant to satisfy your taste buds. Even if you happen to be very fastidious or choosy in matters of eating, I can assure that you will certainly find something to satisfy yourself. If you belong to the American heartland, you will find the New York restaurants slightly expensive. Here, most of them charge anything from $20 to $30 for entrees these days. Yet, right in the neighborhood of the main tourist zone, you will find many places serving good value food, especially if you are interested in going ethnic when food is concerned. Most of the New Yorkers with a tight string budget eat in these places. Places like Holiday Inn Downtown near Chinatown and the Milford Plaza near Theatre District are worth a try to sample some good value food. But, if you do not want to go beyond Times Square for the purpose of dining, you need not worry! You can still get the very best French cuisine at the Jean Georges at One Central Park West or Excelsior Hotel , next to the Central Park . The atmosphere of this dining place with minimalist, yet dramatic décor is always filled with extraordinary aromas and flavors of rare wild herbs and spices. I will specially recommend the arctic char with potatoes and horseradish cream and lobster tartine and young garlic soup with sautéed frogs' legs. If these don't interest you, you can select other items from its menu that are equally appetizing. For those of you who want to indulge in extravagant dining at reasonable price, Lespinasse at St. Regis Hotel is the right place. At this place, you can savor some of the best cuisines from France and Asia , crafted exquisitely under the expert gui dan ce of master Chef Gray Kunz. Here, you can dine luxuriously under brightly lit crystal chandeliers in an opulent dining room reminiscent of the Louis XV era in terms of interiors and décor. Stanhope Park Hyatt New York is the place where you can enjoy your dinner along with a lecture on biological evolution. You will be served a glass of excellent wine with each course including the main one that will consist of roasted pork with potato-and-clam sauce. Created and decorated by a team of prizewinning architects, the 40-year-old Brasserie in the Seagram Building looks as if it has just awakened from deep sleep. Its sleepy ambience will transport many of you to the evergreen ‘Sleeping Beauty' fairy tale. You can order breakfast till 4 p.m. at the Kitchenette. You must try the lumberjack special that includes eggs, bacon and two pancakes or my favorite, i.e., two eggs, bacon, and cheese on homemade crunchy biscuits. In The Maritime Hotel , breakfasts are served from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays, and from 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. You can tuck in anything from banana-macadamia-nut flapjacks to lemon-ricotta griddle cakes, smoked-trout corn cakes, duck-confit hash with a fried egg on top, and seared foie gras with mango compote in a port sauce, provided you have a really big appetite. I generally prefer to have my business breakfasts at the Fairway Café, where my favorites are chorizo-and-pepper-tossed scrambled eggs with paper-thin pancakes and a delicious muffin. Whenever I crave for traditional Japanese food, I always visit this place located within an old-fashioned smack-dab in the heart of the Theatre District. The main items on the menu are sushi and sashimi specials, a variety of hand rolls, teriyakis, tempuras, tonkatsu, etc. Krazy rolls filled with fun ingredients are a specialty of this place. Nobu at 105 Hudson Street is another place to taste authentic Japanese food. It is frequently crowded by the lovers of Japanese cuisine. It offers some innovative, new style Japanese cuisine that you will love to eat repeatedly. Its service is highly efficient and even the quality of food and different preparations are incomparable. For those interested in continental fare, there is The Melrose Hotel New York . It combines delicacies from traditional Irish, Continental, and New American Cuisine along with the facility to watch a game amidst carnival like atmosphere. If you want to eat some of the authentically prepared standard, country Italian dishes, you must go to Babbo at 110 Waverly Place . Some of the mouth-watering items on the menu are beef cheeks, calves' brains, veal liver, tripe, lambs' tongues and occasionally, nervetti as well. The Italian headcheese testa is served so warm that it almost immediately melts in your mouth. Babbo is especially famous for its fresh pasta, Italian wine list, spicy ‘Sicilian lifeguard' calamari, showers of fennel pollen, and semifreddo. The ambience of this place is very homely. The Red Cat is undoubtedly the best example of the American bistro. It has a cozy and laid-back atmosphere enlivened by an eclectic crowd. It serves splendid food at reasonable price and the items on the menu keep on changing constantly. For the elegant and classy, the River Café is one of the most sophisticated places to dine with picturesque landscaping, valet parking, and, of course, proper dress code. So, enjoy dining in New York! Bon Appetite |
